PBS examines Velasquez and his ‘voting revolution’

Published 4:16 pm, Monday, October 10, 2016

Photo: Uncredited /Associated Press

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This 1984, file photo shows William C. “Willie” Velasquez at an unknown location. A new VOCES/PBS documentary on Velasquez dives into the life of the late Latino voting rights advocate just as the nation's largest minority group is set to be a major player in the upcoming presidential election. less

This 1984, file photo shows William C. “Willie” Velasquez at an unknown location. A new VOCES/PBS documentary on Velasquez dives into the life of the late Latino voting rights advocate just as the nation's ... more

Photo: Uncredited /Associated Press

PBS examines Velasquez and his ‘voting revolution’

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Ten years after Mexican-American activist Willie Velasquez died, then-President Bill Clinton awarded him the posthumous honor of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, declaring: “No person in modern America who has run for public office wherever Hispanic Americans live has failed to feel the hand of Willie Velasquez. His appeal to the Hispanic community was simple, passionate and direct — ‘Su voto es su voz.’ Your vote is your voice.”

If the name doesn’t ring a bell, don’t feel bad. Unless you have a few Latino studies courses under your belt, Velasquez is another unsung American hero you’ve never heard of but should know.

For the anecdote about the presidential honor, we must thank Hector Galan, the producer and director of the new VOCES/PBS documentary “Willie Velasquez: Your Vote is Your Voice,” which premiered last Monday and is available to stream free on the PBS website.

Galan, a longtime chronicler of Mexican-American history, takes viewers through a crash course on the long and still-in-progress road to Hispanic political empowerment through the story of Velasquez, who grew from a poor kid living in a barrio on the west side of San Antonio, to the leader of the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project. That organization became the nation’s largest Hispanic voter registration effort at the time and helped increase the number of Hispanic elected officials in the U.S. by 82 percent between 1974 and 1987.

Credited with beginning a “voting revolution,” Velasquez started out counting and courting Latino voters manually by using the local phone book to find Hispanic surnames and then cold-calling them at home with a civic participation pitch.

Galan connects the dots between Hispanic Americans coming home after World War II to face the disappointment of not having equal stature in society even though they served alongside whites and the eventual political agitation resulting from a disproportionate number of Latinos being drafted to serve in Vietnam.

All too brief in this one-hour special is the fascinating discussion about how the African-American civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and the Chicano movement combined to both spur real political participation and stoke intergenerational anxieties among Latino families — with the older generation being scandalized that their children were protesting in the streets instead of keeping their heads down and going along to get along.

From there, the filmmaker delves into how Velasquez maneuvered the differing levels of radicalism and militancy in the Chicano movement in order to achieve the momentum necessary to organize folkloric dancers and Mexican bands at festival-like gatherings designed to register people to vote.

From there we witness Velasquez helping get Henry Cisneros elected as mayor of San Antonio — the first Mexican-American mayor of a major city — and then his involvement in gathering national Latino leaders to cooperate on shared goals and, eventually, in getting Ronald Reagan elected president. Velasquez died in 1988 at age 44 from cancer.

The nonpartisan streak in this documentary is notable. The filmmaker even highlights the Libre Initiative, a nonprofit organization that seeks to introduce more Latinos to conservative politics and the Republican Party.

Mostly, though, Galan’s main objective appears to be illustrating what Latino political empowerment can look like even as Hispanic voters are being blitzed with simultaneous conflicting messages about their lack of voting prowess and their potential impact this November.

Some rah-rah nostalgia about how it was done back in the 1970s is sorely needed at a time when the first presidential debate relegated Hispanics to the mentioned-in-passing roles of NAFTA-fueled Mexican job stealers and a victimized Venezuelan beauty queen.

“(My hope for this film) was to tell who we are,” Galan told Victor Landa, editor of the Latino-centric news site News Taco and host of its podcast.

Galan’s film can be viewed in its entirety at www.pbs.org/video/2365847657. PBS will be counting how many views this special gets as it decides how much to invest in future Hispanic-focused content. So, in the run-up to Election Day, treat yourself to a compelling yet overlooked part of our nation’s history — and help ensure that more such stories are told in the future.